


Perhaps an Alternate History

by Reera the Red (nimmieamee)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First War, Gen, Unfinished
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimmieamee/pseuds/Reera%20the%20Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But with the same old unpleasant people.</p><p>Snapshot of the First War. Potters at home and about. Death Eaters on social calls. Marauders ruining your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Everyone in position!

Yes, even on this very unusually hot day. On this very hot day, we see the half-giant through the half-open window of the pub, half-drunk and half-asleep at his barstool; and the pair of Auror trainees under the shade of the owl-bedecked sign, dragging their feet, obstructing any entrance to Eeylops Emporium and so dutifully warning away all loiterers. We see the small goblins counting small change on the steps of the bank, the watchwizard dozing away his lunch hour at the fountain, Slug and Jigger both balancing empty cauldrons in the shop display, Fortescue melting away outside his counter in the very bright sunshine, blind Blotts peering sightlessly across the way at the window of Miss Malkin’s, where Miss Malkin is herself disrobing, in preparation for her noon bath. We see the hag and her cart at the entrance to Knockturn, spattering the traveling Veela, as beautiful as Twilfit’s moving mannekins, now covered in so much mud as to make them nearly unrecognizable.

We see the wizard and the witch.

In position! Like dolls on the table, with her hand lifted and placed on his arm, his fingers arranged on her stomach, her painted smile and serene glass-green eyes, his head bobbing up and down mechanically, nodding to a passing McKinnon as though to say “Hello, McKinnon!” and to Belby, “Hello, Belby!” and to Melchior Smith, “Hello, Melchior Smith! We are in position! We are all a comforting picture, arranged on a table by some careful hand!”

No one out of place today. No disorder today; all in position, even on such an unusually hot day. Fortescue before his shop and Jigger in hers, blind Blotts at his books, and our dolls in the Alley, arranged to tell some thrilling and moralistic and religious tale. Though perhaps not, for these two are so cheerfully heathen, for no divine being carts toads in her pocket and no heavenly elect parts the crowds with his wand; and yet this, too, is a part of the order, the arrangement of these persons, magical persons, positioned in magical society, composed and happy in their wand-waving toad life, serene and unruffled (as well-placed dolls should be) even in the face of rushing goblins and other such curious company, she placid with her thin fingers in the crook of his arm, he blandly surveying the street with his hand on her belly, each keeping in step with the other without words, understanding their position through serene and secret means, as though decreed by some mystical and holy voice of order, until the moment there is a kick.

Quite a violent one. Out with serenity.

“He’s kicked!” the first doll says, stopping very suddenly and causing several small goblins to careen into a passing Belby’s shins to avoid hitting her and in so doing upsetting their great sacks of gold, which spill onto the street and disrupt the merry picture of the crowd, cause a stately old vampire to trip and curse and a child on a toy broomstick to circle around and around this eminent creature, whooping at the new chaos of it.

“I felt it,” says the second doll, with his hand on her belly, “Because he felt me, probably. He’s chosen to kick!”

And so disrupt the careful order.


	2. The Middling House

This is a middling sort of house, as houses go, with windows all along exactly two sides (the front and the back, the other sides coming firmly up against a houseful of Hufflepuffs on the right and a houseful of Hufflepuffs on the left) and one staircase placed quite commonly and conveniently before the door and a middling patch of garden tended by a middling house elf, but here at present there sit the three finest examples in all of wizarding Britain.

The example sitting near the front windows (dead center, as best to distance herself from both the Hufflepuffs on the right and the Hufflepuffs on the left) is a perfect specimen of several virtues: excellent posture and unmatchable poise, a particular talent for the Dark Arts, a superb dueling stance, an incomparable pair of fine grey eyes, blood unmarred by any suggestion of Muggle or magical beast, quite the most faultless figure in all London, and the distinction of having recently dispatched a troublesome pair of half-bloods who were in the employ of one Bartemius Crouch Sr.

It appears to bother her not at all that this is that fellow’s home; it would bother that fellow only slightly were he to know that she is here (which he does not). Only a select circle knows of her most recent distinction, and he is not in it. Crouch Sr. is too busy – always busy! He is in the business of horrors: publicly denouncing horrors and promising to rectify horrors and declaring that horrors will not continue under his watch, oh no Minister, oh just you see, Minister; and also in the business of mandating the use of horrors for certain persons, which is to say those persons in his employ. There are many horrors these days, and he will be busy for a very long time, possibly until the arrival of Perdition itself, which he has assured the populace he is fully capable of preventing, given their full support. Indeed, the first example remarks that it seems as though Crouch Sr. will succeed at this, that he will hold off everything indefinitely, that he will be in this vein forever, that he is quite bothersome in this respect, that perhaps they will have to dispatch him, as well.

The second example, sprawled out on the couch, only grunts in response. He is well dressed and not-unattractive and quite young, with very fine milky skin and hands. And he is rather resentful of Bartemius Crouch Sr., who is his father (which rather unsurprisingly makes him Bartemius Crouch  _Jr._ , and therefore due to come into the fruits of the horror business), and also rather resentful of sharing his position as an example with any others. Being an only child, much-adored by his middling, serviceable mother, he is not given to sharing. He would have preferred to be listed as the only fine example, but this did not happen. He was named in a succession of three. Not the greatest; only one of the greatest. He cannot understand this. It is something his old man would do; it is only another booming voice telling him that he has much to learn, that he is not fit to inherit the mantle of horrors just yet.

He feels it is an offense to be told this.

The first fine example senses this, but, being so incomparably superior to him (and indeed to everyone), it is not to be wondered at that she dismisses it as silly. She is not resentful or offended. But then she is not quite so young and she is certainly nowhere near as foolish.  

And now we come to the third example. This is the example carelessly scrawling out a note at the writing desk. The desk is placed against a wall, and on the other side of the wall there are presumably a number of rosy-cheeked Hufflepuff children at play, or perhaps a stout Hufflepuff matron good-naturedly chastising an ancient yellowed house elf, but the third fine example is unconcerned with this. Indeed, he is to be praised for his conscious and calculated refusal to acknowledge Hufflepuffs in any form. What’s more, while he also smarts at not being named the sole fine example (or at being included in the company of Crouch Jr., at any rate), and while his dueling stance is somewhat showy and affected, and his aesthetic merit nearly nonexistent (for he has too pointed and fine-boned a face for a man of his size), one must take note of his laudable commitment to government. 

When the Minister and his assistants dine at a fine establishment that serves only the oldest and best cuisine – haunch of hippogriff, dragon’s blood stew, and so on – who, does one expect, is paying for the meal? Surely it is not the Ministry! The public monies cannot be devoted to such frivolities. One might assume that the Minister ought to know better, that the poor old fellow is to content himself with some weak tea and a bit of toast. But it is not so.

Never fear, Minister, the third example will collect the bill. So great is his civic pride, so commendable is his devotion to our government, that the third example will not permit any depletion of the Ministry coffers. Instead he will offer his own gold, like the true and devoted citizen that he is, and who is to judge him if afterwards he likewise offers the Minister some sage advice? Like any proper wizard, this third fine example concerns himself with the correct uses of government. Why, look here, Minister! There is a very expensive investigation of certain harmless-if-bloodstained timeturners in Great Uncle Gallienus’s vault, but no inquiry into the goblins who might be responsible. Is this fair, Minister? Is the public’s time and money to be wasted on persecuting old pure-blood gentlemen, while the true culprits escape unscathed? And what of this so-called Dark Artifact trade in Knockturn Alley, Minister? Are our oldest and most respected business owners to be bullied by the MLE, I ask you? And I keep meaning to ask you about their people; do they have license to hire just anyone? Surely the Ministry must be careful in who they employ. I have some suggestions, Minister, should there be any vacancies in that particular department.

Happily, for the third fine example, there  _are_  vacancies. Two, to be exact, left open by the disappearance of that troublesome pair of half-bloods. Unhappily, for the first fine example, because she was aiming also for a very bothersome blood traitor.

There will be other days, the first fine example tells herself placidly. There will be other chances. For now, she is very content.

But Crouch Jr. is not. The pale lips draw inwards, and the milky hands make fists in the cushions, and there is a dissatisfaction in his eyes that suggests that the thought of catching a single blood traitor someday is simply not enough. Crouch Sr. would not consider a single victory enough; his son is no different in this regard. For the Crouches, for generations, have inhabited this middling spot and yet known, in their businesslike hearts, that middling is not enough. One must succeed – in everything! Middling suffices for appearances, but in reality one must be firm, one must be a good example, and one must not let  _any_  get away.

Any what? Oh, it does not matter. Horrors, if you will. Crouch Jr. collects them as assuredly as his father bans them, and puts them to different uses, though always with the Crouch principle of never letting one go free. It were not horrors, if instead it were litterers or pencil-pushers or suitcases, still the Crouch principle would not waver. And so Crouch Jr. cannot be content. And then he looks about at the house of his fathers and this seems to make it worse, for with all of the dull and businesslike old portraits on the walls, who never seem to have anything interesting to say, only advice on respectability and firmness of purpose; and all of the old, serviceable furniture and the old, serviceable house-elves; and the occasional old, serviceable mother wandering in from time to time like a particularly adoring, peculiarly mobile piece of furniture herself, how is he ever to be content? For there is a grander work out there than the business of minding horrors, and horrors can be put to better use: they need not be spent on the maintenance of a serviceable, middling house and a serviceable, middling wife and the crafting of a son to be someday serviceable and middling in turn.

(And be aware, Crouch Sr., that this son will never meet your expectations in this regard. Middling? No, he is already great. He was named an example, Crouch Sr., and don’t you forget it.)

“You haven’t said,” says the fine example at the writing desk, his tone as pointed as his fine little features. “We’ve come here with a question, and you’ve ignored it. Please don’t be so tiresome, Crouch.”

“You’re the one being tiresome.  _You_ haven’t said,” is the retort from the sofa.

“Crouch,” says the first fine example, whose voice is quite calm and almost musical and entirely befitting her figure and her lovely grey eyes and also her blood (and though some might say that this is a pointless observation and that a witch’s actions are the determinative factor, that her blood and her loveliness and her voice are as nothing next to her deeds, indeed, you would not say so if you could see this exemplary form and hear this exemplary voice), “That is a different issue entirely, and you know it.”

“Well, hang your stupid cousin,” says Crouch Jr. (we will not drop the Jr.; we cannot drop the Jr. if we wish to distinguish him from his father, and he should very much like to be distinguished in that respect), “If that’s all you came here for. Just like his brother, isn’t he? That’s none of my affair and I’ll swear it under Veritaserum.”

This does not seem to be enough for his companions. The little chin above the large chest is affronted. It points menacingly at the sofa, and then at the chair, where the fine grey eyes are very cold and calm above a pair of perfect feminine hands grasping at nothing, as though strangling the very air.

“Only I thought Malfoy was going to say who is chosen,” continues Crouch Jr., and then, with relish, “And now he won’t because I suppose he doesn’t even know.”

Malfoy (who is the third, at the writing desk, as described) says, “Do you suppose? I had no idea you were capable of supposing. Bella, what do you think? Do you think Crouch has proven himself capable of—“

“Oh, I’m capable,” says Crouch Jr., “As capable as any of you. He said so, didn’t he? He didn’t just say you, Malfoy, and you—“ Here he breaks off, as though unsure of how to address the first fine example. Presumably she has a surname, but presumably his middling, serviceable mother has instructed him in the business of addressing witches, particularly witches with blood as fine as this one’s. One does not fling their surnames about, one does not take liberties with their first names; for such witches are the custodians of our fine old houses, such witches are quite as dangerous and as valuable as their fathers and brothers, such witches are not to be disturbed by young men who are careless with names. One is  _never_ careless with such witches, Barty dear, only with other sorts.

”I have entertained a sneaking suspicion that supposition, rationality, and careful thought are all quite beyond him,” says Mrs. Lestrange, which is the name careful people give to the first fine example. Despite these words, she has retired her grasping hands and is calmer and quite a bit less pointed than Malfoy when she says, “But given his youth and his blood and his immense talent with certain spells, I expect he will improve. We must be charitable, Lucius, to our brothers-in-arms.”

“Just the same,” says Malfoy, “I don’t think it’s his place to suppose.”

“Well, I do suppose,” Crouch Jr. says, “Because I have a mind to know what you know, and I will make you tell it to me.”

Malfoy appears unimpressed with this rejoinder. He returns to the note, and squints at it with his pointed little eyes, and sniffs in dissatisfaction with his pointed little nose somewhere above his pointed little chin. Perhaps the note is not careless enough for him – who can tell? After a moment, he folds it and takes it to the open window, beside which there is a perch with a very middling grey owl upon it, and, fastening it to the owl’s leg, sends it off to be received by someone he has no inclination to be careful with.

The fine, calm grey eyes, large and hard and sparkling as precious stones one might find buried in Great-Uncle Gallienus’s bloodstained vault, watch this with some interest, and then Mrs. Lestrange says, “I hope that was not for Snape.”

“I do as I am told,” says Malfoy.

“What  _were_  you told then?” persists Courch Jr. “You weren’t told who is chosen, I expect.”

Mrs. Lestrange’s grasping hand and Malfoy’s pointed chin once again exchange silent communication. They are not pleased with the company in the middling house; they would very much like to be elsewhere; they cannot understand how someone so young and foolish could be listed with them as an example; indeed, they can hardly believe they must trust this boy, given his parentage, but for the fact that he evinces a certain callow viciousness that speaks of great promise and in this he is matched only by one other, and that one has blood only half as good. But they were told to be here. And in this, at least, Malfoy and Mrs. Lestrange do as they are told.

“Oh,” says Crouch Jr., flopping about on the couch so that he is sprawled even more carelessly than before. “You don’t know anything at all!”

Something in the chin takes offense at this; it quivers, points with annoyance at the sofa, then at the window, and then settles decisively to point down at the broad expanse of Malfoy’s own chest. “I expect I know as much as you do.”

“Prove it,” says Crouch Jr.

But this is the wrong tactic to take with a third fine example. Perhaps such childishness will produce fun results with one’s middling mother, or with the sniveling firsties at Hogwarts, but one declared to be an equal (however such a declaration might sting) will not stoop to answer such juvenile needling. The pointed nose wrinkles, the fine little mouth forms a sneer, and Malfoy only says, “I _have_  called Snape here. He says it’s to be me and you, Bella, and Snape and Crouch for the Department of Mysteries.”

“Hadn’t it better be Dolph instead of Snape?” says Mrs. Lestrange. “I think it ought to be Dolph or Rab.”

“I should think  _anything_  would be better than Snape,” says Crouch Jr. “I hate Snape. I would take any number of hexes to avoid being with that slimy—“

“Shall I send them your way, then?” snaps Malfoy, disgust animating his pointed chin and setting it to quivering again. “I expect it won’t make a difference; you’ve been so useless either way.”

Crouch Jr. reaches for his wand, but Mrs. Lestrange only says, quite blandly, “Well, summon Snape, then, if you must summon Snape.”

This has a calming effect on the pointed chin, which becomes still again, and a similar effect on Crouch Jr., who appears to suddenly remember his middling mother’s objections to young men who plunge into dueling with no thought for how it might affect those feminine persons with incomparable breeding and spotless blood and such a nervous constitution, Barty dear, such nerves, for you don’t know the half of what horrors are out there, my dear boy! 

“I must. He has decided that it will be Snape,” says Malfoy’s little mouth above Malfoy’s pointed little chin. “Do take it up with Him yourselves, if this bothers you.”

“We couldn’t,” says Mrs. Lestrange calmly.

“We certainly wouldn’t,” mutters Crouch Jr. He flops again to a more comfortable position (though this is a businesslike, serviceable sofa he lies upon, and therefore not comfortable in the least),“And Snape is foul, but I suppose it’s for the best. He does know the best curses. It will be more fun with Snape.”

“More likely it will not be fun at all,” says Mrs. Lestrange.

“The planning,” says Malfoy, “Has been the very opposite of fun, I assure you. I do not normally make jaunts to Hufflepuff – forgive me, I forget the street name – _Habbitew_  Alley, to meet with young fools who—”

Crouch Jr.’s skin flushes very red. “It’s a good thing I’m as pure and as powerful and as Dark as any of you, then! He named me alongside you, didn’t he? So we’re connected now, you old—“

This statement will bring forth another look from the supreme Mrs. Lestrange, and it will set Malfoy’s pointed little chin to quivering again. They do not like the connection; Malfoy and Mrs. Lestrange would, on certain days, prefer to see it go as unacknowledged as any Hufflepuff, and the little chin is in fact quite offended by it. It is tired of quivering and could use a good drink to guide into the fine little mouth, or a good escape from this horrible middling house with its horrible silly only son. Luckily for the chin, and for Malfoy, and for Mrs. Lestrange, there is the chime of the door and Crouch Jr. falls silent.

The chime is Snape, who was previously declared both foul and fun, but who is decidedly the former and not at all the latter. Here is Snape: no example of any kind, except perhaps the greatest example of what to avoid at all costs. Snape, with his sallow form an ill-constructed patchwork of Muggle and wizard – the coarse, dull skin stretched over the fine cheekbones; the great, ugly nose curving over the thin little mouth – and his ragged secondhand robes too low even for a middling sort of house, comes inside with a creeping step that frightens the Hufflepuff children on the stoop next door. He has few attractions, one of which is the ability to offset everything around him to greater advantage. Next to Snape, a not-unattractive fellow appears downright handsome, a pointed face is recast as patrician, and a jewel like the supreme Mrs. Lestrange shines all the brighter.

His only other attractions to speak of are a surprising propensity for the occasional rational thought (even Mrs. Lestrange will admit that blood, oddly enough, does not indicate one’s ability in this regard, though it is naturally determinative of nearly everything else) and, of course, the curses, which are very clever and very nasty, and only fun if one’s tastes run to the unnatural. From the low forehead, from behind the curtains of stringy black hair and the hard stare of those beetle-black eyes, there spring forth wonderful perversions: ways to strip the skin or squeeze the heart until it pops like a balloon, ways to melt the brain inside its cranium and to dissect the human form and bring forth the liver, the kidneys, the gall bladder, as though harvesting ingredients for a particularly ghastly potion.

If we must admit to another attraction in this aberrant character, we will admit that Snape is also very accomplished with potions. But there his limited charms end.

There Snape stands, making the middling room seem far too grand for someone like himself, and he appears insolent and freakish to everyone else present, because he does not say ‘Yes?’ or ‘You called for me?’ or anything of the sort, which is the attitude one expects from a creature like Snape. He offers only impertinent silence and that ugly black stare, until Malfoy says, “It’s to be you, then. I expect you knew it already. You and I and Bella and Crouch. Tonight.”

“Why would he know already?” says Crouch Jr., “Why does he get to know? Who trusts  _him_?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Lestrange says, after a moment, “Even Crouch would be told before—“

“Before Snape,” says Crouch Jr., “Certainly before Snape. It’s no business of Snape’s.”

At this, Snape gives a rude smirk, as though he cannot comprehend that he is before his betters – the three finest examples in all of wizarding Britain – and says, “On the contrary, I’m the one who told Him of it in the first place.”

There is a silence, and Lucius sighs and brings a hand to his pointed little nose, as though disappointed for some reason, and then Crouch Jr. gives a shrill cry and rises to his feet, wand clutched in his hand. The lovely Mrs. Lestrange has hers out as well, but she does not use it. She only watches Crouch Jr., assessing.

“You?” Crouch Jr. says, “How could  _you_  have known? When do you have reason to creep about after Albus Dumbledore? Planning a defection, are we?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Snape says. “He set me the task Himself.”

This is too much for Crouch Jr. There is nothing milky about him now – he is entirely flushed, his fine clothes in disarray, but his well-formed hand very steady on his wand. He points a finger at Snape accusatorily.

“You? How could He choose you? I think we all know how unlikely that is, Snape,” he says. “As though everyone here doesn’t know what you  _are_ —“

“Must we make a scene?” says Mrs. Lestrange. Though she says it calmly, her wand is still out, for such witches are masters of their emotions, such witches appear forever poised, and such witches are the first to draw their wands and the last to retire them. The great quantities of spotless blood in their fine veins would never permit it: such witches will have the upper hand at all times, and in fact they are born to it.

“As it is Crouch,” says Malfoy, the thin little fingers gripping the bridge of the pointed nose with irritation, “I suppose we must.”

Crouch Jr. has had enough. “Well, tell me who He’s chosen, then, if you’re all so clever. That’s what I’ve asked and none of you will say. So tell me if you know.”

Snape’s ugly, thin mouth turns down at the corners.

“Don’t be stupid,” he says, “He cannot possibly have made a choice yet. He won’t know for sure until tonight, and there are good twenty possible conclusions to draw from what He does know—“

“Don’t  _you_  presume to know His mind,” Crouch Jr. says, “He hasn’t told you, of that I’m sure.”

“Calm yourself,” says Mrs. Lestrange, “He hasn’t told anyone, has he, Lucius?”

“If it will shut Crouch up to hear me admit it,” Malfoy says, “Then I will admit it: I don’t know any more than he does, and neither does Snape.”

Snape has no inclination to admit to anything; it is yet another perversity of his that he will not back down even when faced with the three fine examples. He does not like to lose, even though he ought to expect it by now, having so many obvious shortcomings. But perhaps these shortcomings are not so obvious to him, or perhaps he simply does not care. This makes him as defiant as he is unpleasant, and therefore a very bold, rebellious sort indeed. But one must come to heel sometimes, and if not before one fine example, then more than one will sometimes accomplish the trick, so that when Mrs. Lestrange says, in her lovely, calm voice: “Isn’t that right, Snape?” Snape gives a quick nod, and looks away, scowling.

Crouch Jr., being reared with the principle of never giving up until all are beaten, of never letting one get away, of relishing capitulation in those around him, takes to the sofa again, and it is supposed that he is satisfied, only satisfaction is a weak word for what dances in those young eyes, and for the triumphant smile that plays on the milky mouth.

“You don’t know any more than I do? You’re wrong,” he says, “None of you know as much as I do. He has his suspicions, and He has chosen already. We only confirm it—tonight!”

Crouch Jr. satisfied is not the least bit pleasing to this company, being, as they all are, quite aware of the great depths of horribleness it often takes to satisfy such a young and voracious appetite. But youth satisfied is still far preferable to youth undone and upset, is it not? And Malfoy is quite tired of him and Mrs. Lestrange is not yet decided on whether they ought to quash this youthful hunger a bit (he is so foolish sometimes, such a child, very like her blood-traitor cousin in his behavior, which can be quite appalling, but his blood is quite good, you know, very good indeed) and Snape’s opinion does not signify. So for a moment there is silence.

But then Snape gives a start. “You don’t know anything,” he says brazenly, as though he does not give a fig for examples of any sort, not even a very fine one, not even one of the three finest, not even one destined to inherit a vast and endless business of horrors. For Snape is remarkably contrary! Could he be anything else, standing there defiling the middling house with his own exceptional ugliness, standing there sullen and perverse, standing there unaware of his own inferiority and ignorance? What a revolting creature to sneak into the middling house and make it appear so exalted by comparison! Making an example  _of_  this creature will be such fun that Crouch Jr. cannot resist, although he was told to be careful with what he knew.

Crouch Jr. is not quite as mature as the other two examples. He is not always as careful as he should be, in spite of his doting mama’s counsel. He does not always do as he is told.

“It’s the Potters who are chosen, half-mud,” Crouch Jr. says. “He’s told me so.  _Me_. And no one else.”


	3. The Cozy Unit

If you were to tell the Potters that they were chosen for something, it would come as no surprise at all to them, for they are largely the sort that are always chosen for everything, or at least for everything good.

Suppose you found a charming lane in a town full of the friendliest people, and suppose that on that lane there was a house all surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers and situated more picturesquely than its neighbors, and suppose you asked some amiable passerby who happens to live there?

“Why, the Potters do,” he would say, and he would smile warmly at the thought of such fine people taking up residence in his parish. He could tell you that the area has always been lovely, of course, and that never once in his life did he think it could be improved – there being warmth and joy and affability all around, and consequently no room for improvement – but that a quiet, often-unnoticed house apparently became vacant quite suddenly and then who should appear but Potter, having inherited it. Potter having thrown the doors open to reveal such a pretty wife. Potter having displayed a cheerful and lovely baby in the windows so that those who stroll down the lane might be gladdened and comforted by the sight. Potter having exhibited himself in the role of doting and devoted papa and debonair husband. And it has so enhanced the already-genial character of the area to have him here, it has made the town ever more darling, that the amiable passerby can only conclude that he is a fool for not ever conceiving of someone as magnanimous and welcoming and wonderful as Potter.

And someone like Potter would have no reason to be anything but magnanimous and welcoming and wonderful, being chosen for a number of blessings in rapid succession: kind and doting progenitors, a great deal of magical ability, the careful cultivation of those morals which transform a decent child into an upright and progressive sort of man, a genius for flying, friends always willing to lend an ear or offer a hand in support, a decided aptitude for transfiguration, a ready and well-used sense of humor, the honor of having been a Hogwarts Head Boy, a sizeable Gringotts vault, the aforementioned pretty wife and cheerful child, and a picturesque little house to keep them in.

Having reached manhood only relatively recently, but determined to make the most of it by being a righteous and honorable sort of man, Potter has conceived the gracious idea of passing his blessings along to others. He reckons he has done so all along, in any case. He has never been a stingy fellow: some money for a friend here, a home for another friend there. What lapses there might have been in his otherwise praiseworthy behavior were only childhood and immaturity, to be sure, and this is just as well because a tiny voice in the back of Potter’s mind suggests that otherwise he could never be truly worthy of Mrs. Potter, multitude of blessings notwithstanding.

Were the fine examples in the middling house to hear of this thought, they would likely burst into laughter. Mrs. Potter, they will point out, is a red-haired Muggle from the North with only two talents to recommend her: first a sort of horsey beauty, and second the rather tiresome distinction of never having lost a single point at Hogwarts. Mrs. Potter would not contest any of this, but she would add to the talents, with no small amount of pride, first her Head Girl badge and next her flair for charms and then her string of outstanding NEWTs and finally her complete and utter disregard for the opinions of the finest examples in all of Britain.

You see, if Mrs. Potter – oh, but let us call her Lily, for she has only been married a short time and she does not yet  _think_  of herself as a Mrs. Potter – if Lily were ever to be rude instead of good-natured, callous instead of darling, it would be to the set that consider themselves fine examples. Inside her sweet, stalwart heart there is a small sliver of rancor, and that rancor is reserved for the examples. Lily despises all examples. It is not to be wondered at, for when she was chosen to attend Hogwarts, what should she find there but a never-ending parade of examples? First an example of how to succeed in Potions by knowing all the best families. Then an example of how to browbeat others into submission using only one’s surname. Next an example of why restrictions on Dark Magic did not apply to certain kinds of people. Then innumerable examples of how to make a fool of (red haired, Northern, Muggle-born) girls who did not understand old wizarding customs. Finally an example of why such girls were valueless as friends, quite the sort of connections one ought to cast into the mud.

Examples! Lily has no use for them.

So quick is she to disdain the examples that, she is ashamed to admit, she almost counted Potter (but she has brought herself to call him dear James by now, and so shall we) among them. Was he not an excellent example of how to behave badly without suffering recompense or the slightest bit of remorse? And likewise a fine example of how wealth can buy popularity? And, what’s more, was he also not a decided example of athleticism used to excuse one’s propensity for misdeeds? Never mind his terrible example to the younger students, of how best to terrorize and intimidate anyone who seemed the slightest bit odd, the slightest bit—

Well. That was only childhood and immaturity, to be sure. He is trying so hard to be a good man now, and Lily is so sensible and Northern that this is what matters most to her.

Happy couple! How lucky Lily is, that James is trying to change. How lucky James is, that Lily has the good sense to forgive and forget!

But now let us catalogue them both; some people can only come into their own when they find another person to measure themselves against, and so we will look to each of the Potters to define the other. Lily, measuring herself against her dear James, will tell you that it is really he who is more good-natured; that she is quicker to anger than he is, and slower to pardon her friends; that she in fact has fewer truly _close_  friends, being considered gracious and pleasant but also somewhat priggish at school, and having less to offer in the way of connections and money and fun; that she likes how James has matured for her, and how James measures himself by what he feels to be her innate goodness, rather more than might be considered healthy and proper and that sometimes she worries over this; and that she cries more than James does, which is an embarrassing trait to have amongst their set – one must be stouthearted, you know, one must not snivel – but that he is really very sensitive as well, deep down underneath, for wasn’t he overwrought and very nearly undone when his parents died (never mind all that money and also the house that he inherited)?

James will not admit to that latter point (though it is true, and no one understood like Lily, no one else had just lost two parents, and hadn’t he always known she could be that kind and understanding to him, if she could have been so for – for somebody else?), but he will say this: he is very dependent on Lily; he has never comprehended dependence before, has only seen it in certain friends of his sometimes, but this is it. This must be it; this living for the thrill of seeing her bright green eyes look on him with pride, look on him as a hero.

For James does a great many heroic things that Lily cannot: he rescues werewolves from poverty, and offers homes to his friends, and he is heard when he suggests that the examples are not such fine examples after all. Lily is not heard. Lily does not have the blood for it.

But here is what really defines dear James these days: a new emotion. He had not felt it before looking on his new wife and his cheerful, gurgling new baby, but it came up suddenly and will not go away, and it is fear. Not fear of the examples and their flinging ghastly curses about – that’s rubbish – but fear of himself, or, rather, of revealing himself. Because the sad truth of the matter is that Lily pegged him correctly the first time. Dear James has long considered himself a fine example – oh, no, not of the type that will bribe the Minister to get what he wants; not an old-guard example; not a Dark sort with a distorted sense of right and wrong; not one of the calm, pointed species that ever-waves the banner of blood and rules and Our Fine Old Traditions. Merlin forbid!

But even dear James will tell you that example is the word for someone who understands the right way of doing things, and James does. Always has. Was born to it, in fact. Not that you need to be born to it, obviously, because Lily was not and yet now she understands, now she knows that there are lines witches and wizards should never cross, and people one should know to distrust, and that one need not reach the level of those examples in the middling house to know that some types are Not Our Sort. Dear James can spot Not Our Sort from a mile away, can’t he? Nasty types. And if sometimes he wants to have some fun at their expense, well, then, we ought to forgive him. It is not so long ago that dear James was a child, after all, and it is hard to let go of immaturity all of a sudden when there is still such opportunity for amusement out there. Not that he does not try. He is so affable with all his friends, and he gives money to help Lily and people like Lily, but, oh, what about the people who aren’t his friends? What about the people who aren’t like Lily? Dear James will not admit it to his wife, but he would find it difficult to help some Hufflepuff duffer without extorting a good laugh from the situation, and he can’t think why anyone would offer a Ravenclaw a hand without first needling them a bit (they can be so  _odd_ , you know, and it is fun to make a point of it), and as for the Slytherins…

Well. Lily’s come around about the Slytherins, hasn’t she? So they do not even signify.

But what if she should discover the incident with the Muggle policeman, or hear about that night with Padfoot and Wormtail (these persons signify quite a bit, particularly for this story, but we will not meet them just yet; we must be patient and wait for their arrival on the scene) and all the firewhiskey? Then perhaps her bright eyes would dim, and she would not see a hero anymore, only James as he is: a hoax. He would still be a very fine example, to be sure, but Lily hates examples. Lily, who possesses such a power of making one feel every bit of their worth in her bottle-green eyes, has only married him under the misapprehension that he is not an example. If only she knew! If only she knew and could understand!

But she does not. She has never felt the temptation of being an example, only perhaps the shame of being made an example  _of_ , and that is very different. And we will not even speak of the cheerful baby (to be christened Harry one of these days, but still so new as to be called only Baby), who is to grow to manhood knowing decency and respect for others, and to never, says Lily,  _never_  set himself above them as a lofty example. What will Baby make of his father then, when he discovers what James is really like?

So these are the Potters: perhaps not as genial as they seem, but with general, vague hopes of righteousness and goodwill for most of their fellows, and few among us can claim more. Indeed, Lily and James know of only one person who would seem to be so unfailingly good, and he is progressing down the charming lane (he could have Apparated and saved himself the walk, but it appears to be a walk he is comfortable with) towards them at this very moment, and then he is opening the gate and proceeding through the front garden with all of its perfect flowers, and then he is upon them in their cozy sitting room and Baby, seeing him first, brings forth a happy gurgle.

“Headmaster!” says Lily.

And this is certainly who it is, for who else could have such a long and funny crooked nose, and such twinkling blue eyes, and who else would wear those golden robes hung with moons, and that tall hat that makes Baby coo and reach up one small hand in wonderment?

And now it is time to speak of Baby, for it is Baby who the Headmaster has truly come to see (though the Potters do not know this), for it is Baby who was born in the seventh month, and to parents with such a healthy streak of defiance in them for those fine examples in the middling house – how fortunate Baby is! Like his parents, Baby is evidently a child chosen for many blessings, and the Headmaster considers this as he hoists Baby up in welcome.

Welcome, Baby seems to say, cheerfully gurgling away as Lily puts the kettle on and James vacates the best chair for the Headmaster. And the old man, with that great long beard that Baby yearns to tug on (but cannot, for some reason; somehow it escapes his grasp and entwines itself around the Headmaster’s spangled belt instead) and those very blue, twinkling eyes that Baby likes nearly as much as Lily’s bright green ones, seems to say welcome in return. He has been to see another baby already – albeit a sleepier, chubbier baby, though adored quite as much as this one – but no others, and this makes Baby a very lucky Baby indeed. How many children play at meeting Albus Dumbledore – at being him? How many stories are told in small, high voices of the defeat of the Dark Wizard Grindlewald? How many wait excitedly for an owl with a letter signed by this very man, for a grand red train that will bring them to see him in his very own hall, below the enchanted, sunny ceiling of Hogwarts?

But only this child – this child and perhaps one other – has received the Headmaster in his parents’ own cozy sitting room and curled one soft, small hand around the old man’s long ring finger as though greeting an equal. It is an emotional sight for Baby’s parents, for here is Baby not as another cheerful appendage of the cheerful family unit, but Baby as he might be, given some time. Baby as a good and righteous man someday; Baby as a powerful wizard. Bearded Baby with a twinkle in his bright green eyes and a kind word for all. Both Potters cease to think of him as Baby at once, for such a blessed child must be accorded his name, a decent name for a child sure to be a decent man. And so Lily is struck by: oh, to think that  _our_  Harry could be so lucky! And, simultaneously, James hits upon: naturally, it is  _our_  Harry who is so blessed!

Then in comes the tea, and so too are summoned the sugar and the saucers and the sweets (for the Headmaster always offers sweets to his charges, and it does seem wrong not to reciprocate), and the Headmaster, lifting the child aloft and tossing him easily enough to produce shrieks of joy, offers:

“He resembles his father, but with his mother’s eyes. A very strong grip, I find, and sure to have excellent hair.”

Neither parent is quite sure how to reply, being that Harry’s mother has hair that is decidedly too red to make for a handsome boy, and Harry’s father’s hair is an obtrusive, unkempt black thatch forever entangled in quills and his glasses (he forgets they’re up there, sometimes) and the occasional fluttering Golden Snitch. Harry’s follicular prospects are somewhat depressing, and, just like that, dampened are the fantasies of producing a sure successor to the greatest wizard who ever lived. In bringing up any sort of baby, even a very cheerful and lucky baby, it is best not to leap forward into the child’s conclusion, but instead to allow all of the small peculiarities and irregularities to present themselves, and then to work slowly from there on out. The Headmaster, twinklingly measuring the child, watching the way Harry floats perhaps a bit too high and for a bit too long, and how decidedly unafraid – indeed, how very accepting – Harry is of being so buffeted about by so twinkling a person in such maniacally spangled robes, seems to understand this.

But now sensible Mama says, with no small amount of concern in her voice, “Sir, are you quite sure you should be tossing him? He’s only—“

And at this dear James laughs. This is a very quaint tendency of his wife; this is something she does often (though, thankfully, less and less these days, Merlin bless her); this is mere lack of knowledge, and so it is a trait wizards and witches must learn to accept, must not chastise, must not draw conclusions from. Perhaps we can make fun of it a bit, James reasons, but only if we make good fun. We mustn’t make an example of these things, we must be tolerant, we must gently correct the ignorance when we see it, and that is all.

“You don’t think,” James says, his tone easy and as humorous as he can make it, “That Harry’s a Squib, do you?”

The bright green eyes can only blink at this, and the pretty mouth turns down at the corners, for Lily does not understand the connection, for her people – that is to say, Northern, Muggle, occasionally red-haired, often-horsey, but almost always sensible people – would not toss a child about in that fashion no matter what the child was, for almost all of their children are delicate and easily-hurt (and, James thinks, recalling his limited experience with non-magical infants, runny about the nose and eyes and practically every orifice in a very alarming and feeble fashion). Muggle children emit frailty with every sniffle and ordinariness with every coo, and sometimes Lily cannot understand that their child – hers and James’s – will of course be nothing like that. Wasn’t she worried about the baby inhaling pollen, as though pollen could harm a magical child? And didn’t she make a fuss about leaving Harry to gurgle happily in the sun, as though  _sun_  could ever pose a threat? And now she is concerned with a bit of tossing. As though a boy like Harry could be harmed by it!

Lily really does not understand sometimes what it means to be special, what it means to be exemplary. This is annoying in many people, but in her and in her sort of people, James concludes, we must be patient with it. We must not be annoyed. Indeed, from so pretty and so cheerful a wife, it cannot be annoying; it can only be adorable.

Only Lily does not seem inclined to be adorable or even the slightest bit cheerful at this moment. At this moment, she is rather more inclined to be aggravated. She is quite used to and quite tired of even the good sort of humor, when that humor is had at her expense, when she is trying to be serious, and so she says, “And if he is? What does it matter? I think we ought to be careful—“

“We don’t  _need_  to be careful,” James says, making an attempt to educate his Northern, Muggle-born, red-haired, horsey, sensible, pretty, adorable, aggravated, beloved wife. “He’s not like – like your sister’s boy. He’s like us. He’s stronger than—“

“I don’t see why you need to bring that into it,” says Lily, very adorably and not-at-all-cheerfully and indeed somewhat dangerously, “I don’t like—“

“Because you think everything will harm him! You think he’s like Dabney—“

“ _Dudley_ —“

The Headmaster clears his throat.

The Potters fall silent.

“Even so,” says the old man, “Perhaps we had better respect the mother’s wishes.” And at this he surrenders Harry to Lily, and waves away both her apologies and her husband’s, and says, “I must tell you both something.”

Forward leans James, in the second-best chair. Forward leans Lily, and then back again to steady Harry as he pitches to and fro, demanding to return to the tossing. The babyish dream is to go unfulfilled, for one does not toss about when the Headmaster has something to tell. What the Headmaster tells is often so important, so paramount, so for the good of all! For doesn’t the Headmaster know when those examples are sneaking about? Doesn’t the Headmaster come to warn one when certain middling houses are empty and certain foolish young men gone out to work the business of horrors? Indeed, he does! And it is the Potters he takes into his confidence, the Potters and certain others, of a sort quite as good as the Potters, and it is this sort that he calls on to counter those foolish examples. So James eagerly leans in, and so too does Lily, and on the tip of their lips is an assent, an agreement to do their part, whatever their part may be, whatever may happen.

For they do not know yet that he has come to speak of the baby and of what _must_  happen, whether they agree to it or not.

But what must happen at this moment is a pop just outside, and a knock on the door that leads in from the rear garden, and then a man coming into the sitting room (the knock being largely for politeness’ sake, Lily having declared him as welcome as family at any time and James having clapped him on the back in agreement) and pulling up short with a kind of relief to see not only his welcoming friends and their welcoming baby, but also the first and the greatest and very nearly the last wizard to have ever shown him welcome since he was a very small child.

The newcomer has seen precious few welcomes, sadly enough. For though it should be noted that there is nothing wrong or strange or nasty about him, or at least nothing one can detect, apart from all those scars that suggest he has been tossed about quite a bit more than baby Harry just was, and by someone far less kind than the Headmaster, there is something in his aspect that expects a kind of rejection and is ever surprised when it does not come. Perhaps he is too young to know better, for he is only about as old as Lily or James, or, more likely, it is that his circumstances have left an indelible mark upon him in this respect. For, to judge by his clothing, his circumstances are not very good. It is unlikely that he has had as many blessings as the happy couple before him – who knows? Perhaps only two or three in his short life, but, even so, the grateful smile and the warm and comfortable eyes with those laugh lines already beginning to form tell us that this is not a person to be dissatisfied. This man does not worry over what others have that he does not; he is not jealous or careless or superior or sneaky; this person would never demand any more than he has received: no, he is very content!

“Remus,” says the Headmaster, thus naming the personage (who, certain nasty types might tell us, is so committed to being a nonentity that he wouldn’t dream of criticizing his friends if they called him anything they liked or forgot to call him anything at all; would in fact be perfectly comfortable going entirely unnamed and unnoticed; yet certainly  _could_  not object to being called Jaws or Beast or Ripper or Heel, Boy or Monster; because you see that’s what he is – a wholly satisfied monster, content to nip about at the feet of those who hold his leash. Oh, but just ask him what he did two weeks ago! Just ask him where he was when the moon was high and full and quite red in the sky, a death moon, a sign that—

But do not mind that. We mustn’t listen to those nasty types).    

“Moony,” says James, quite in command of this naming business as well.

And Remus, or perhaps Moony, nods at both, finds both agreeable, and will not argue with either.

“I’m pleased to see you here, sir,” he says to the Headmaster. “I was meaning to see you after this. I have to—“

And here the Headmaster gives a small shake of his head in warning, for though they have a great deal to say to each other; though there are tasks he must dole out which Remus must accept, and secrets Remus must unload that the Headmaster can relieve him of; though the good of all demands that Remus speak…

It cannot be now. Now will not do. For now brings a queer conundrum: there is much to say to the Potters, but it is wiser not to say it before Remus. And there is much to hear from Remus, but certainly it cannot be heard with the Potters present. The Headmaster knows secret speech, dispenses it alongside lemon drops as though it is just another bit of innocuous fun, but he is too wise to truly believe it harmless. It cannot be tossed out on a whim; it must be carefully guarded. The value of such speech is not merely in its capacity for mystery and wonderment, but in knowing when and where to apportion it. A secret for Baby can, perhaps, be stretched to accommodate Baby’s mother and father, but no further. And even the secrets of a very content man like Remus should not be bandied about like so many pleasantries there in the cozy sitting room; even those secrets are to be weighed and measured and redistributed with care.

But then James says (quite misunderstanding the entire business, for though he is generally a good sort and a clever sort he is not quite as good and nowhere near as clever as the Headmaster), “Hang on, Moony, you don’t need to bother him if you need more money.”

At this Lily can only grimace, annoyed, for this is just the sort of behavior she does not appreciate, this is more of what went on earlier with the tossing, only worse because Remus is a special case, because everyone knows Remus will only play along. Remus is not the sort to be aggravated, Remus will not object, Remus will not argue, and yet anyone with sense would understand that Remus’s situation – his many disappointments – are still his to reveal as he chooses. To bring up Remus’s circumstances before the Headmaster without warning, without asking permission, is a betrayal of sorts. It is very careless of James not to see that; it is one of those tendencies he has that makes him so very like those examples at times, only he would probably say it doesn’t matter, does it, as long as Moony isn’t putting up a fuss?

But it does matter, Lily thinks. One should not be careless with others, least of all with friends. Can’t James see that?

He cannot. He is trying, but, oh, he will lapse, sometimes.

But Remus is not grimacing, and the Headmaster is not grimacing. Indeed, the Headmaster is smiling, quite as though he has not heard, and he only turns to Remus and says, “Perhaps later, my boy. For now, I must speak with—“

Oh, but dear James is not to be dissuaded. For he has that plan to pass his blessings along; he has a mind to show Lily and Harry – and to prove to himself – that he can be nothing like an example at all; he has already made arrangements with himself for improvement; how is all this to be accomplished if those persons who are less blessed than he will not accept his blessings (will not fall into line, the nasty types would say, will not  _heel_ )? If they no longer want or need his help, or if they go elsewhere, as though they don’t trust him to be a decent sort – what then? And what has he ever shown Moony that would make Moony doubt him in this respect? Hasn’t he been a fine friend? A bit of a troublemaker, perhaps, when he was young and immature, but who is Moony to judge him, and to judge him now, when he never once raised a serious complaint before? A bit of a yes-man, Moony always was, so why alter his ways now? Why disregard James’s blessings just when James is so ready to pass them along?

A grand improvement his charity should be if he has no one to be charitable  _with_!

(And it’s not as though the Headmaster has time for whatever it is Moony is asking after. He’d give his time anyway; he’s a fine old man, not one to turn anyone away, and the greatest wizard who ever lived, besides. But these are bleak times. Those fine examples spring ever-new horrors on unsuspecting innocents, and Not-Our-Sort will creep along after a man and catch him in the back with a curse if he’s not careful, and there are greater, more fearsome things in need of attention than old Moony. That’s the truth of it.)

“You know I have money if you need it,” says James, quite loudly.

“I don’t, Prongs,” says Remus, not unkindly (though he is now much closer to a grimace than before).

“Either way,” begins Lily, “Now is not the time—“

“Wrong. You always do need it,” says James.

“Perhaps Remus and I had better speak now, then,” says the Headmaster, sighing. “Privately.”

“You don’t need to if it’s only money,” says James, “He knows I can help; haven’t I always? So—“

“No, I don’t—“ says Remus, “I mean, I do. But I need t—“

“Why didn’t you say so, then?” says James.

But this heavy-handedness will not stand in the Potter household, for the Potter household has two custodians, and one is very sensible and Northern and ignorant of her husband’s clever arrangements and occasionally just aggravated enough to interrupt the great and charitable plan, to rein in the good and righteous and generous James. And so Lily says, “Harry is very tired. James and I should put him down for a nap.”

Four pairs of eyes then turn to the cheerful Harry, who is at that moment perhaps the most refreshed child in the whole of the United Kingdom, and also very much invigorated by the tossing and all those voices escalating around him.

“He’s fine,” says James. “He isn’t tired at all.”

His adorable wife reaches for her wand. One, two, three of Harry’s toys – a stuffed snitch and a soft cloth Beater’s bat and squeaking plush stag – stage a decided revolt against the indulgent Papa who purchased them only a few months earlier, flying at his head and very determinedly forcing him out of his chair. Harry laughs happily to see his father batting them away.

“Oh,” says Lily. “How funny, dear. What a clever trick. It’ll be difficult to get him to sleep now. I expect we’ll be at it for some time, actually.”

With this, the Potters cede the cozy sitting room to their guests. Perhaps Mr. Potter is not so glad to yield in this instance, and perhaps Mrs. Potter was not just now quite as gracious as she is known to be, but magnanimity comes easily enough to them, and in time they will find themselves as affable and merry as they ever are. So we will not take note of the quibbles between them. Among the gladdest and kindest of people, such things do not signify. 


	4. Gamesmen

The Chair determines who signifies and who does not. Or, at any rate, the person in the Chair does, but this is a person who despises others looking upon him with brazen eyes when he has not commanded them to, naming him when they have no right to. This is the naming person, the ordering person, the placing person. For all those that come before the eye of the Chair, from the loftiest example down to the lowest Not-Our-Sort, must be named, must be put in place; and their place is somewhere below this person, who is naturally somewhere above them. This person orders them as he pleases, raising some and casting down others, and in so doing makes it clear that he, or perhaps we should say He, commands their life and commands their death and commands their horror and commands their welcome, and will employ all this as he sees fit.

He is an employer, chiefly.

Lestrange and Lestrange, in his employ, do not dare look at him. They see instead the straight upholstered back of the Chair; and behind that the very grand fireplace which is crackling with a kind of black fire that freezes the eye that looks upon it, unless of course it is the exacting eye of the Chair; and above the fireplace that impressive portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Lestrange and her equally beautiful sister and the terrible slashed canvas, like a wound within the frame, where a third used to be. The third has lost her name, has lost her place, and signifies no longer; the third is to be slashed down and made to suffer alongside perhaps a Mudblood fourth and a filthy, infantile, aberrant fifth; the third’s place is below them! This is the right way of doing things. So speaks the Chair. And so too speaks the lovely painted Mrs. Lestrange above the fireplace, with those eyes like painted jewels and that figure quite the second-loveliest in all of London, the loveliest belonging to the real Mrs. Lestrange, who is of course superior to all in every way (excepting, of course, to the Chair).

The significance of one Lestrange is that he is married to Mrs. Lestrange, that fine example and custodian of his house. And the significance of the other is that his brother is married to her. These things are taken into account. Measured in this way, these Lestranges are above most. Employing these Lestranges allows one to get at Mrs. Lestrange, whose familiarity with the Dark Arts and superb dueling stance must be employed in turn, oh yes. So when we make the pyramid (which is to go beneath the Chair, with the Chair at its summit), we stack the Lestranges here – perhaps the solid Lestrange above the jittery Lestrange, like so, so that the nervy little fool will learn to support his brother’s weight – and above them the grey-eyed crowning jewel of the house. This is how we play the employing game, the ordering game, the game of significance.

Only  _we_  do not play it, the Chair seems to say.  _I_ do.

And this place is laid out like an ordering game as well, with the Chair and then a space very near to the Chair for the first example, who is born to give the Chair the upper hand. Also a place near the window for the second example, who will not let any get away from the eye of the Chair. And then a spot to lean against the fireplace for the third example, who does what the Chair tells him. And then behind the Chair are the Lestranges and also Rosier and that space for young Black who was remiss, but who had such a good name and such good blood to employ, and the Chair took this into account in his placement. And near the doors are placed Nott and Dolohov and Mulciber and Macnair, snares employed chiefly for their cruelty and their cleverness. And in the next room over is Avery and also Wilkes and also Karkaroff, and in the front room are Yaxley and the Carrows. And also in various places throughout the grand house, in places that befit their significance and their employability, are Goyles and Crabbes and Jugsons, Gibbons and Parkinsons and Selwyns, Baddocks and Farleys and Flints, and innumerable others because the game is growing very quickly; the game grows larger and grander with every passing day!

Now here comes another game piece, but we do not know where this one belongs. We do not know how this one came to be placed anywhere among this exemplary company, or indeed where exactly this one  _is_  placed, for it seems to have no particular permanent spot. The Chair delights in moving this piece about the game, about the house, about the countryside, to wherever such an ill-assembled, sallow, slimy tool is least-wanted and most likely to cause harm.

But! says the spot at the fireplace. This piece can be so foolish.

But! says the place near the window. This piece can be so foul.

But! says the space next to the Chair. This piece is filthy. This piece is half-mud.

But the Chair dislikes this. For the Chair has found its favorite piece. This is the piece to confound that other gamesman, with his beard and his sweets and his spangled stupidity; this is the piece no one expects to find creeping along behind them before it curses them in the back; this is the piece that drips misery and punishment and retaliation everywhere it goes; this is the piece that twitches with hatred like no other; this is the piece, out of all of them, that is most like the Chair itself. And so the piece is permitted to come forward and to kneel with its back to the black fire, with its eyes raised up, because, indeed, how else is the Chair to see inside that wonderful, horrible, orderly, ghastly mind?

The Chair smiles.

Yes. Yes, it is to be them even if it is not them, for I am grown tired of these people who are so defiant and deviant and who do not respect my ordering, and of course you are tired of them too, Severus. You must not lie to me because I can see inside your mind how much you hate him, with that superior laugh in the corner of his mouth and all those blessings he has that you do not. You should hate him. He is like your betrayer mother, lying with one so far below him in the order of things that of course he will grow to regret it when he sees what the child is like. For the child is sure to be ill-constructed and ugly and unlucky and unhappy, like you (and me, thinks the Chair privately, grimly, and with satisfaction), and is better off dead because you, at least, are useful and wanted here, but that one I could never want. Not with that father who has hurt you and disobeyed me by his boldness. Not with that mother who has hurt you and disobeyed me by her birth.  

Oh?

_Oh_.

Oh, this I must take into account.

And then the Chair begins to laugh. Not a musical laugh, no, but a red-rimmed and waxy and hazardous kind of laugh that makes the black fire grow colder and the pieces by the door draw into themselves because cruelty and cleverness cannot help you when this laugh breaks free, and indeed all the pieces arrayed about the house feel an intoxicating, unstoppable, murderous sort of dread come over them. This dread is about the sum of what is contained in the Chair. In the portrait above the fireplace, Mrs. Lestrange’s lovely grey eyes soften with affection and anticipation. Her beautiful sister looks away, but then all she can see is that wound in the canvas, and so she settles for glancing heavenward as though there is something on the upper story, but the only thing there is Rookwood drawing into himself at his place in the library.

_Crucio_ , says the Chair, and keeps this up for quite a bit longer than any of the pieces think is wise, though for shorter than it would like to because Snape is to be deployed to the Department of Mysteries tonight, and so it cannot have him going mad. That would be the loss of his best piece, besides. For Snape, this tremendous little tool, this marvelous favored pawn, does not collapse or shriek or wet himself like the others do. The others have such spotless blood, you know, and maybe it is that that makes them so fine and delicate and unable to withstand it, maybe it is that that makes them cry and tremble and think babyish, weak thoughts of how,  _I don’t deserve this, my Lord, really, I don’t! I_   _will do better, but surely you must think of my name! Surely you must see that this is not my place!_

It is certainly that that gives the Chair such a thrill when it hurts them. One’s name is subject to the whim of the Chair. One’s place is wherever the Chair chooses to put one. None of them understand this as Snape does. Snape is the only one who never looks away; who makes an offering of his pain before the Chair; whose mud-clogged, spidery veins keep him checked, keep him certain of his position in the ordering game. Oh, no, it is not cowering below the others. Not with that mind of his so much quicker and ghastlier than any save the Chair’s. Not with those spells of his named for someone who has wronged him, someone with many blessings and spotless blood and an ill-favored child (very ill-favored, for the Chair should like to see it swallowed up by black fire even if it turns out the child is harmless, for the Chair thinks that might be an amusing sight) and a pair of adoring green eyes to look into every day.

And the Chair must take into account that Snape is not alone in this. Even the most exemplary pieces are similarly devalued, consumed with that force that renders one worthless. Worthless! Worthless for a pale, pointed infant; for that one remaining sister; for a middling, serviceable mother who will be cast down alongside her husband. And Snape must be made to see that the Chair will cast  _his_ little diversion down, because of course that creature is not worthy of him. The Chair thinks that Severus Snape may not have a fixed place, but those green eyes have no place at all, unless they were plucked from her skull (perhaps with one of those spells Severus himself invented) and fed to the snake that twines about the Chair’s feet.

Snape flinches.

Oh, says the Chair, do pardon me, Severus. I had no idea I was speaking aloud.

The Chair rearranges all the pieces then, so that it and Snape and might be alone, and sends away the beautiful painted women above the fireplace, and tells Snape that it does this only because it understands his worth, and so it will not have Snape humiliated before the other pieces. Is this not kind, Snape? Is this not more than you deserve? You are very accustomed to humiliation, we think, and yet here is the Chair willing to spare you this, and, truly, no has done this for you before. Be grateful, Snape. Be grateful and attentive.

And now here is the Chair (or rather the waxy person in the chair who we are never, ever allowed to mention by name) leaning forward, and taking Snape’s chin in hand, and very kindly pointing out that it will not mention how Snape has begun to snivel all over the carpet. The others only do this at the all-consuming physical pain that envelops their very spotless blood, but not so for Snape, who is ugly and perverse and accustomed to it. When Snape moans this way, it is because there is a part of him inside that is even more broken and ill-assembled than his exterior, and this part cannot patch itself together well enough to go on. And, oh, Snape must go on, because if Snape were ever to stop – well. Then he would not be a tool and a self-operating chessman, and he would not be useful, and he would no longer have a place.

The Chair knows Snape knows this, so it does not bother telling him so. What it does tell him is:

Do you know, Severus? The others do not understand what it is to not belong. But I think you do. I see you looking on them with that grim satisfaction you have, when you think you have found what makes someone weak, what makes them hurt most. And what makes them weak is that they have always had a place, and it has made them stupid because they believe they will always have one. But you are not so stupid. 

You know you’ve always wanted strange things, deviant things, things other people hated you for. And so up you came in the world, with children pointing out how odd and freakish you were, and that trash that spawned you pointing this out as well, and that ugly blood-traitor who gave you all this shame never strong enough to make a place for you (for that is always the way with those who do not know the importance of blood, Severus), and we all know that Hogwarts does not welcome people like you who are ugly and unlucky and deviant and Dark; and so you had no place there, either, except to insinuate yourself among those that were born into a place, whether they deserved one or not. Unfair. But then the world often is, and it is very pathetic how much you wanted someone to find space for you and yet no one ever did, did they?

Did she?

No, boy. I don’t believe she did. She chose someone with a great deal of money and connections and a good name and good blood – such good blood, Severus! For all that he debases it, it is very good blood, you know, the blood of wandmakers and such – and, and this is very important, Severus:  _power_. Oh, I will grant you that the power is not in the blood, necessarily, but he had it all the same, didn’t he, in the way people listened to him and in the way people looked up to him and in the way she thought of him. But she would never bring herself to think of you that way, because you were always odd and humiliated and weak, with half of you so much worthless mud that even a base, animal mud-girl (here Snape flinches, and the Chair digs its nails into his chin) could not bring herself to like. And do not think that she and her kind don’t really know, deep down, how very worthless they are. You and your kind know it about yourselves, so why not them? You chase after a place among the powerful, so why not them?

She does not love you. But take heart. Neither does she love him. She is only clever, in her own bestial way (and again the flinch, and now the Chair brings up its wand and casually peels away some skin below Snape’s collarbone in retaliation, because it does not like people jerking about when it is tearing at those silly and broken parts inside of them), and so she has found the most powerful one who will have her. That one will never be you, of course, as long as you continue with this weak foolishness. She could sense it in you when you looked at her, and she was repulsed, and so she chose instead someone who could give her power. And you, like a fool, sit here thinking that humiliating yourself further is what will make her yours.

Oh?

Certainly I could be made to give her a place. You know I’m very reasonable. I made a place for you, didn’t I, even with all that mud in your veins. Even with that, I have raised you up and given you employment and given you worth and given you a thousand places: places to spy and places to learn and places to fight back and places to redeem yourself and places to be useful. A great many more places than I’ve given the others, Severus, because they don’t have your sense and your understanding and your cleverness. They must be kept checked; I have never needed to do this with you. So certainly. If she is not in my way, and if she can be useful or at least amusing, she will be spared and she will have a place. I could be kind even to her sort, you see, if it were worth my while. But it will not be if you continue so debased by this perversion and so useless to me. Useless. That is what you are, so concerned with a Mudblood of no significance.

Oh no, Severus. This is not the right order of things; this is not  _my_  order of things at all.

Then the Chair forces Snape down, so that he is prostrate at its feet, and the snake slithers about near his neck to catch the drops of blood that have soiled the carpet. For a moment Snape has the wild thought that it is twining itself into a noose for him. But the Chair does not catch this thought; somehow Snape keeps this filed deep in that horrible and orderly mind so that even the eye of the Chair cannot see it. So he does not make for an amusing game piece just now, and the Chair sends him away.

We might suppose that Snape would be grateful for this escape, for no longer being caught between the snake and so much black fire. But he is such a deviant creature that there is nothing gratified about him, and certainly nothing thankful for all the wisdom and worth and the use and the place the Chair has given him. There is only that fractured and swollen something inside him that he is so accustomed to. That is the broken something he has wanted for so long to mend, but which even now cannot be reconstructed. Try as he might, the parts of it cannot be made to fit; it is doomed to be as ill-assembled as the rest of him, with its jagged edges causing him so much pain, piercing him from within and making him bleed out all this perversion and all this worthlessness, that we might suppose he has fallen victim to one of his own curses.

So here is Snape, in a kind of cramped garret with stacks of books against every wall so that the room looks about to swallow him, and stacks of books forced in the sliver of a window to block out the light so that no one might witness the process. He collapses onto a spindly cot, with the mattress sagging to touch the floor even from his insubstantial weight, and still he is moaning. Until now he had at least the Chair, looking on him approvingly and sharing with him the secret delight of all those examples placed here or there like so many chessmen, and through all this that cold eye saying, “Of course you shall be a chessman as well, if you like, for in _my_  game even a very ugly, foul, filthy mud-person like yourself has worth.” And also the Chair’s great logic, its comprehension and its commands and its ordering, as though it might know the secret of how to reassemble even a person sliced into so many odd and ill-fitting fragments, some of them exemplary and some of them mud and all of them reeking of deviance.

Because he  _does_  love her. Love her as he has loved all other perverse things: liquids that bubble with blood and pain; books with their minds hidden but their pages excreting secret knowledge that only he is unafraid to look upon; that one that bore him and threw onto him all this shame; and such a stupid grey-eyed star-person, who had a place without deserving it and yet threw it away for a creature as misshapen and ugly as Snape himself.

Oh, she would not like to be among such company, he thinks. But there she is all the same: beloved.

There is a pounding from below. It is the one that bore him, the one that mostly regrets him. It is too much, to have her scolding him in this manner, to have her knowing that he sits here crying, to have even this additional sliver of humiliation. He jerks himself upright and opens the trapdoor and fires out such a string of expletives that she goes silent with fear.

A peculiar way to treat someone he loves.

He seems to know no other way.

The one that bore him retreats down a narrow staircase and into the kitchen. She does not know where he has been; or who he is caught up with; or what lurks in his horrible, orderly, ghastly mind. She is alarmed at the thought that she might care, but, then, he has ever been her perversion: the ugly, unwanted child she could not bring herself to smother. She lights a cigarette and, to avoid thinking of him, looks instead at all those common Muggle prints on the wall, and is cheered when she recalls that the one that hung them there has been punished, and all of him lies now like so much mud beneath that strip behind the house that leads to the privy. All of him minus his liver. She does not know what Severus did with the liver.

We must now interrupt this person in her kitchen (for we do not know what he did with the liver either; for we would rather not contemplate it; for it will be a relief to leave these people – who are not our sort, you know, not our sort at all – behind), and direct your attention once again to the cozy sitting room, which, the cheerful unit having retired to spread affability about the nursery, now begins to resemble one of those common Muggle prints. You see, the two remaining in the sitting room make for a peculiar contrast. Looking upon them as we are, we would suppose that the printmaker has displayed them in this manner (we see them both in profile; facing each other intently; appearing as queer, opposing caricatures; one on the best chair and one on the fourth-best) to convey Those Adornments Belonging To Age Alone, or perhaps that Youth Cannot Be Measured In Years.

For Remus (Remus J. Lupin, or Moony, or even Ripper or Monster if you are a very nasty, very bad sort of person; if you are an ugly sort and a cruel sort and the sort that Mr. Potter would gladly hex and Mrs. Potter would never want to speak to again) has perhaps more names affixed to his person than years, has still some blush of adolescence about his thin person, cannot be much older than young Crouch Jr. flopping about on the sofa in the middling house, and yet there is something bedraggled and colorless in him. If he were fighting a terrible battle, unwinnable in every respect, and if he were destined to go on so doing for the rest of his life, he could not look more discouraged. But what man of his age faces such a battle?

Then there is the Headmaster (Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, or The Greatest Wizard of Our Time, or the Supreme Mugwump, or the Chief Warlock, or that obsolete dingbat, depending on who one asks), who has claimed a great many more years than names, who has won unwinnable battles, who leads now in the current battle, and  _he_ , by contrast, is not colorless in the slightest. It is not only the spangled robes, or the twinkling eyes; it is not only the distinctive hat, or the funny nose. It is not anything at all that most persons would notice because it is sits so incongruously on such a white-bearded figure, this steadfast assurance that even the most terrible battles have an end, provided lifetimes are committed to ending them. Is it not the young who face the world in this manner? And yet here the Headmaster has such conviction in his grasp, while young Lupin is—

“Sorry,” says the fellow in question, “I went to the castle first, but they said you were at the Ministry. I only came here because I wanted so much to see them. I haven’t been by lately, not with what I have to do; it seems odd to see them after all that; they’re part of another world, really, and I know I mustn’t tell them anyway. I didn’t know you were here, sir, or I would’ve come sooner, and I didn’t expect James to—“

“You must not be sorry for wanting to see your friends,” says the Headmaster gently. “And I hadn’t expected news from you so quickly, Remus. Well done.”

At this, something of the colorlessness is dispelled. But it returns in an instant.

“It’s not much,” says Remus. “I thought I’d have more for you, only they don’t trust me.” And here Remus brings out his wand and does something surprisingly clever for such a colorless, agreeable person; says a secret-keeping spell to keep the cheerful unit upstairs quite ignorant of and safe from all these goings-on; says it to ensure that his words are not bandied about carelessly (which makes the Headmaster look on in approval) and, for the good of all, speaks:

“The Department of Mysteries. At least Malfoy, who they say is in the inner circle, and perhaps one or two more. Tonight!”

The old man is not surprised. Among his many adornments is a kind of prescience, an understanding of where the other gamesman will next deploy his pieces. The Headmaster has experience with these pyramid builders, you see, and he is never astounded when their ordering games grow larger and more complex (though it must be said that even he has been startled by that unexpected game piece creeping about on the step, and so the Chair has had the advantage on at least one occasion); and he is fully prepared to answer this with a maneuver of his own. For he knows many defiant people, many countering people, many people who disregard names and loudly decry the game of significance. These are the ones who will gladly strike at the examples. Already we have been acquainted with or at least heard of some of this brazen company: the cheerful unit, the yet-to-arrive Padfoot and Wormtail, and even colorless Moony with his secret speech and his longing for trust.

This latter person has proven himself trustworthy, thinks the Headmaster, and will suit for this task, for the Headmaster has never known him to be careless and the Department of Mysteries will require a great deal of care indeed. Also young Peter Pettigrew, who has taken a job in the Ministry and who is always very good at getting into and out of places with no one the wiser: he, too, should answer this. This makes for two of the stouthearted set, but Pettigrew is not very powerful. They will need someone strong, for no one weak could hope to go up against those examples and survive, and Remus alone could not hold them off, and the obvious counter is to add the remaining two, dear James and that Sirius Black, and in so doing complete the set, only…

Only he is drawn again to that peculiar thought that perhaps the one he has placed before all the others as an example, an example with all those blessings and that humorous tolerance of those who are different from him and that defiance in the face of all who would declare some significant and others worthless, and also that heroism that has made him risk life and limb even for a nasty sort he does not like—that example is young yet. True, the Headmaster has known him to stage daring rescues before the jaws of childish carelessness, and has thought that perhaps here was the one to lead the rest. But now he must reflect on dear James.

Kind of him to offer money. But not so kind in the offering of it. That was not just treatment; it was not fair. It was heavy-handed. And sending him out together with Sirius Black will only make it worse. So it is to be one or the other, but not both. But which?

Dear James would of course suit. But dear James has, with his dear wife, produced a singular Baby, an infant who must be guided and brought to manhood by the best possible father in the best possible manner—and so they cannot have this father sliding back into immaturity. They must see him improve (oh, Headmaster! If only you understood the great and charitable plan!) and, of course, they must keep him and the child and the wife safe; this cheerful unit must not be placed in harm’s way. This is a very strong consideration, so perhaps not dear James.

But Sirius Black resists placement. Oh, to be sure, he has such incomparable strength and ability, such reckless courage, such a superb dueling stance and such headstrong defiance in his fine grey eyes; he has not a single care for his blood unmarred by suggestion of Muggle or magical beast, and he has quite the most ingenious head for defense, and he has even the distinction of having recently dispatched a pair who were in the employ of the Chair. But this has not remedied the carelessness he has about him; the sense that he is born to have the upper hand. The Headmaster cannot approve this sense, for this is also the sense that brings out a superior laugh in even the most heroic mouth, and that causes those examples to cast down all they judge to have no significance. This is the sense that led young Black to jokingly tell someone, someone foolish and foul and filthy and unwanted and ill-cared-for and a  _person_ , all the same, a secret that was not his to tell.

Oh, the Headmaster does not know what the boy was thinking when he did this. He cannot say with certainty that Black did it because he felt himself superior and mighty. But he suspects (and we know, and so we shall tell you) that Black saw there a fine bit fun, and a place where nothing like a beast waited, and a comeuppance. He saw there something only his exemplary sort knew of; and something that the other, with all his misery and his lack of place, thought he should never discover. And he said to that other, “Here is something to stop all this humiliation I have carelessly thrown on you, and here is something to make you feel as though you’ve a bit of worth. Here is something given to you at last, and here is something that might convince the others to make a space for you. Here it is, Snivellus; here is my joke. Enjoy it—if it does not kill you first!”

And it is this that tells the Headmaster that perhaps Black is not of the countering sort at all. For although he came up in the world with that father of his calling him deviant and freakish, and that brother of his pointing this out as well, and the one that bore him slashing at him to wound, and those beautiful cousins who once kissed him now intent on dispatching him for good (for this is always the way with those that place too much importance on blood, thinks the Headmaster), and with Hogwarts his only welcome because Hogwarts welcomes even those who are odd and deviant and defiant, there remains in young Black a sense that he is placed far above most others. There remains in him a kind of lax cruelty, something remiss.  

But then Sirius Black cares so little for his name or his blood. The Headmaster must take this into account.  

“You will be there, Remus, to counter whatever it is they do. You and Peter and Sirius.”

“And James?” says Remus.

“No,” the Headmaster says, “I have come to speak to James of something else entirely. Do not concern yourself with it. Go now and find—“

Now this there is an urgent sort of chime, and the Headmaster lifts from his belt a peculiar device, made of brass and with hands like a clock. This is an alert that the Chair is gone out in the world to make harm, and so for now he must depart. Remus is careful and will handle this, and Baby’s parents are safe until at least tonight, and will be told Baby’s secret at the proper time. The Headmaster is needed elsewhere.

“I must go,” he says, “But see to it that you are there tonight with Peter and Sirius. Concentrate your efforts on protecting the Hall of Prophecy.” With this cryptic utterance, he is gone, and now here comes dear James into the room. He was for a time on the stair, his adorable wife so cross with him that eventually she banished him even from the nursery, and he had almost succeeded in evading that clever spell that kept Remus and the Headmaster’s speech undisclosed. But now he does not need to work at evasion, because he can just get Moony to tell him.

“Suppose I was a bit tactless, there, Moony.”

“No,” is the agreeable reply, “You were perhaps more than a  _bit_  tactless, Prongs.”

“Well, a fellow’s got to help his friends,” says James easily, “And the money might sting more coming from the old man than from me.”

“He wasn’t offering money. Only a job, which is better. It’s for me and Padfoot and Wormtail this time.”

The cheerful and blessed brow furrows slightly. “Not for me as well?”

“It’s odd,” Remus says, “He said you weren’t needed for this. He said it was to be just me and Padfoot and Wormtail, though I think—“

“Odd of you, not to stand up for Prongs,” comes a strong, clear voice from the door, “Ought to have seen to it he was included.”

Another voice laughingly echoes this sentiment with, “ _He_ ’s always done it for  _you_.”

This seems to cut at Moony in an unexpected fashion; what little color he has dissipates. It is true, he thinks, that James has always included him, has always made space for him. But he tries to help James as well, in perhaps a quieter way, but it is his own way: his own agreeable, secret-keeping, trust-desiring way. And it has never occurred to him to gainsay the Headmaster, who makes strange decisions sometimes (once he even gave a place to an odd, colorless beast-child who thought he would never have one, and who has been faithful to the old man ever since, quite as faithful as he is even to the most careless and tactless of his friends), but always for the greater good. Still, it is true. Were the situation reversed, wouldn’t Prongs have protested and demanded his inclusion? And so too would the others. For, Remus thinks, it is only me that is like this, waxen and waning as that moon in the sky, and never able to live the way the others do. There is no self-pity in him as he considers this. It is only fact, and isn’t it corroborated by those laughing voices near the door, and by the satisfied look on James’s face as he rises to greet them? It is only fact, Moony thinks, and I must not let it wound me; no, I must be content!

“Well, you can always trust Moony to keep quiet instead,” says that clear voice.

“Oh, yes!” says the merry answering laugh. “Moony’s good at that!”

Enter Padfoot and Wormtail.


	5. The Full Set

And so here is the full set.

Oh?

Did you not know that they  _were_  a set? Perhaps you thought that this Sirius Black (for this is Padfoot), as described by the Headmaster, was to have no set whatsoever. Perhaps you supposed him to be a standoffish type and a superior type and to be always at the business of distinguishing himself from his fellows.

My friend, you could not be more wrong!

There is no call for him to distinguish himself. He is already distinguished. He might say that he need make no effort in this respect (unlike  _you_ , perhaps, if he supposes you are of a whining and pathetic and talentless type); he might say that he is already more quick-witted than most and more capable than most and more handsome than most, in that tall and broad and fine-boned and grey-eyed manner that hitherto belonged only to those examples in the middling house. He might. But probably he will not. He will wait for you to say it instead, and, if you do not, he will find a way to make you see it, perhaps by subjecting you to that quick wit of his. He looks only for a bit of fun, you see, and perhaps you are to provide it!

Well, it is easy enough to see why he would be such a harmful influence on dear James-called-Prongs, you are saying. Now, you say, it all makes such perfect sense: the whispers of immaturity and the Headmaster’s concern. Now we can see that this person is inclined to bring out all that youthful nonsense in the doting papa, and now we can see why papa should feel a bit ashamed of himself, and of course we suppose papa has no choice but to gently shake his head at this person and say, “Now, now, Padfoot. No careless childishness today, I’m afraid. Now that I’ve a wife and baby and a house to keep them in, you must leave me to my self-improvement!”

Oh, but you  _are_  stuffy.

Do you really believe that the cheerful unit is the only unit Prongs belongs to? We assure you, he has places in at least a dozen units. First in the devoted and affectionate unit of his own doting papa and mama, and last in the adoring and magnanimous unit he has created with his pretty and cheerful and aggravated wife, but in the interim he was not to go place-less, oh no! He is not born to that. Not quick Prongs with all those blessings and all that good humor. No, Prongs has crafted himself such a merry and a laughing and a hell-raising unit as you have ever seen, and it is this set you see before you!

Hell-raising? Yes. Oh yes indeed, for—

Oh, but you keep interrupting, for now you cannot believe that Moony could ever be of use to a pair of hell-raisers. Moony the content? Moony the colorless? Moony who is ever-agreeable and who will not make a fuss? Surely this person is far too mature for such company.

Ha!

Such a clever fellow Moony is, and so good at keeping secrets, that we think no one could be  _more_  useful. Moony to study and learn and share a good many spells that might be turned to mirth. Moony to be careful when the others are so caught up in larks that, heedless and lax, they might not notice larks set on  _them_ , perhaps to peck their laughing eyes out in retaliation. Moony to face the world, with that faded and trustworthy aspect of his, and to swear that the set has only ever been up to good, sir. Sorry, sir, if the set should have stumbled and caused a bit of hurt here or there, but it was not intentional, sir. Sir, the set has never once meant any real harm!

Very well, you say. But that is enough to make a set. That is all that is needed. These young men – these  _boys_  – are capable of quite enough mischief on their own, we can see, and so let us cap the set at three and permit no one else to take a place among them.

Oh, but you are forgetting  _Wormtail_.

This we will not chide you for. Everyone forgets Wormtail. This is Wormtail’s chief talent, to be forgotten and permitted to slip in and out unnoticed, planting a lark here and a lark there and so many larks about you, quite ready to prance on and to peck at you and set the hell-raisers to laughing as they see you batting about and sniveling that these larks are hurtful and that these larks are malicious and that in time these larks will peck your eyes out! Oh, perhaps these larks will. But you might deserve it, and if you did it would be quite funny to watch you so reddened and upset, and all the while you would not be able to prove who did it: James Potter was in plain sight somewhere, and Sirius Black was in plain sight somewhere else, and Remus Lupin was perhaps talking earnestly and secretively with the Headmaster, and you would have forgotten all about little Peter Pettigrew!

For that is who Wormtail is. Not a powerful fellow, and likewise not clever or handsome, and always in the shadow of those that are. But if you were one of those, you would perhaps make a place for Wormtail in your shadow as well, for who better to take your larks out into the world? And he is so round and dimpled and fair and pink that, you might suppose, he cannot be one of the nasty sort. Not Wormtail with his comical belly! Not Wormtail with his merry little laugh! Not Wormtail, our own jocular little mascot!

No, no. Wormtail must be one of  _our_  sort; Wormtail belongs in the set. The riotous, unconstrained, sidesplitting set! Those fine marauders: Messrs. Moony and Wormtail and Padfoot and Prongs!

**Author's Note:**

> This was once the leadup to The Eleventh Birthdays, but I've abandoned it for the time being.
> 
> So it's just a First War snapshot for now.


End file.
